Dr. Oz has published a new “Two Day Spring Cleanse” in the March 2012 issue of Oprah Magazine. The first thing he points out is that this cleanse is meant to detoxify your body by eating whole foods that are packed with nutrients.

He contrasts this approach with the cleanse and detox programs pushed by celebrities that deprive you of nutrients and often have you drinking lots of water and juice. What Dr. Oz outlines follows closely on the success of The Clean Program and PEERtrainer’s Fresh Start Cleanse, which have focused on adding nutrition instead of removing calories.

Even Nutrisystem has gotten in the act by creating something called the Success Program which adds a daily protein drink to the mix. Protein is a key part of each one of these Cleanse approaches because it plays a key role in removing toxins from the body.

How Dr. Oz’s Cleanse Works

In Dr. Oz’s two day cleanse he has people start the day by making a bowl of Quinoa mixed with ginger and nutmeg for breakfast. Dr. Oz states that “quinoa contains all the essential amino acids, making it a complete protein.”

He then states correctly that traditional versions of cleanses do not include protein, which can result in muscle loss. Your body needs the amino acids to perform the detoxification processes, and if your body cannot get it from your diet, it will start to “mine” them from your muscle tissue.

How Dr. Oz’s Cleanse Is Different

Not only can cleanses that do not include protein cause muscle loss, they can also make you feel bad. Many people who go on The Master Cleanse for example report feeling bad, sick and nauseous. This is because the body is not consuming enough protein to remove the toxins. So not only do the toxins build up, which makes you feel sick, your body is attacking its own muscles.

Lunch Recipe For Dr. Oz’s Cleanse

For lunch Dr. Oz suggests drinking a fruit smoothie, which will taste great and also provide nutrients which have been shown to clean the cells and help support the liver. The fruit smoothie recipe includes blueberries and banana, and also includes ground flaxseeds or ground chia seeds. These seeds contain fiber, which helps to support elimination. They also contain protein and Omega-3 fatty acids which your body needs to function optimally.

Dinner Recipe For Dr. Oz’s Cleanse

For dinner. Dr. Oz suggests making a vegetable soup. The recipe he gives includes red onions, chopped celery, chopped fennel, chopped garlic cloves, sliced shitake mushrooms, chopped cabbage, chopped parsley, fresh oregano. You take all these ingredients and cook them in 2 cups of water for an hour.

This soup is packed with a broad array of nutrients. Not only will this soup fill you up, but it literally will help to detoxify your body. If you do this often enough it can reduce your risk of cancer! According to Dr. Joel Fuhrman, eating mushrooms on a regular basis “is associated with decreased risk of breast, stomach, and colorectal cancers.” He goes on to say that “White, cremini, Portobello, oyster, shiitake, maitake, and reishi mushrooms all have anti-cancer properties – some are anti-inflammatory, stimulate the immune system, prevent DNA damage, slow cancer cell growth, cause programmed cancer cell death, and inhibit angiogenesis.”

Dr. Oz suggests that one include fermented sauerkraut, which contain probiotics that help the gastrointestinal tract. He also suggests that after dinner one eat some apple slices to increase the fiber. For those of you struggling with emotional eating, this cleanse strategy can really help you deal with night eating and mindless snacking after dinner.

Will Dr. Oz’s Cleanse Work?

Starting the day off with Quinoa (or any other clean protein like wild salmon) has been shown to help fight hunger. The fruit smoothie will give you a little glucose which your body needs some of. And the extremely nutrient dense soup for dinner will help you feel very full. This helps you in two ways. First, your body gets the nutrients it needs, which over time will help you stop emotional eating.

Secondly, this soup will fill you up without adding calories or fat. If you find your self dealing with emotions or some sort of trigger where you would normally eat, just eat another serving of this soup. This way, you’ll turn something that is normally negative into a positive.

Of course over time you need to train yourself to respond to your emotions without using food. But first things first. Eating a hearty vegetable soup at night, even when you are not “on a cleanse” is a good strategy. You can also experiment by adding a little avocado or grass-fed beef to your dinner.

One very interesting thing to note about Dr. Oz’s cleanse program is that it does not include any dairy, eggs, wheat, soy or corn. He does not make this clear, but this is very good advice.

Hello Petra ..great topic!One of the things that has leephd me a lot with emotional eating is asking my self a better question. When I get tempted, especially around pizza my nemesis, I just ask myself is it more important to me to eat this pizza right now or is it more important to me to get down to X amount of weight by X date? My brain knows the right answer even if my stomach does not.Also every morning when I put my keys and my cell phone in my pocket I also have an index card I put in my pocket that just says the weight I want to be at and a date. That way I can pull it out when ever I have a moment during the day and focus on it .Along with the weight loss program I am following these have been a big help for me .Nice blog by the way!

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